Matthew Berry's Remarks at the National Conference of State Legislatures’ 2014 Legislative Summit

The Federal Communications Commission recently sought comment on two petitions asking the Commission to preempt state laws regulating municipal broadband projects in Tennessee and North Carolina, two of twenty-one states that impose restrictions on municipal broadband.

The real debate is not about whether it is a good idea for cities to get into the broadband business. Nor is it about whether states should restrict localities from getting into the broadband business.

But those are questions to be asked and answered in the fifty state capitals as well as other cities all across our country. Rather, the debate at the Commission is going to be about a relatively narrow but critical question: Does the FCC have the legal authority to preempt state laws regulating municipal broadband? And the answer to that question is a resounding no.

[Berry is Chief Of Staff to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai]